HICKEY OUT AND ABOUT: The visiting art critic said 'art is run by losers," so messaged an L.A. based Paint This Desert field witness. The eye and ear attended the MOCA-sponsored David Hickey chat and book signing in downtown Los Angeles that stuffed Grand Central Market with, as she said, Cali Arty students. Hopefully they will recover from last nights revelations...The PtD operative was struck by Hickey's claim that professors are "failed artists" and good at crushing the hopes of art students. "If you are gifted they will try to destroy you. Because you could do what they couldn't." . . . Hickey is the former UNLV art professor who made his retirement an event and now on a book tour for "Pirates and Farmers." @cmonstah, aka Carolina A.Miranda, was also there, which was "particularly bad luck" for Hickey, says Tyler Green.

CATCH UP: Hickey left a mark here in Las Vegas and many wonder who will guide the art ship. That was asked at a November 2013 panel "What is the role of Art in our culture?" at the Las Vegas Book Festival. Panelist Dawn-Michelle Baude, a poet and UNLV professor, responded with "He's not here anymore. We have to move on."

ADD FEBRUARY 2: At C-Monster, Carolina Miranda posts "A few words about the David Hickey talk" to sharply say: "Let’s be clear: I was at the talk because I do have some healthy respect for Hickey as a writer. He stays away from the word salad gobbledygook that is my art world nightmare, and for that I am grateful. I’m also a proud owner of Air Guitar. And as someone who regularly writes about travel, I find his essay on Las Vegas to be poetic and insightful — one that addresses, yet goes beyond all the Sin City tropes. That said, last night’s talk was a disappointment." She's rankled and says why.

Through colleague G. James Daichendt, I spent enough moments with Kent Anderson Butler to join into his quiet mischievous irrelevance. As a video artist influenced by Bill Viola, Christian faith-based Butler responds to Renaissance and Baroque paintings composition shared with film and photography. He deconstructs it back a bit with “Avant-Kitsch,” portraits of artists and curators on, what he calls, “photo tapestries.”

Bill Viola is one subject portrait, along with other artists, curators, and writers, including Ingrid J Calame, Liz Young, Susan Joyce, Mat Gleason, Andi Campognone, Tyler Stallings, Jack Butler, and Kent himself. I made the short list, but haven’t seen the final work that uses Butler's photograph of me against a bright pink wall shot in December. Of course, Las Vegas is an Avant-Kitsch tapestry all by itself, and Amanda Harris Contemporary Gallery's front door are steps away from Las Vegas Blvd in the Arts District footprint. But Butler says the region’s reputation isn't necessarily guiding the narrative. That same preview inquiry asked Butler if the Kitsch narrative opens the door for these tapestries to be mass reproduced and sold on Las Vegas street corners, giving the artist a chance to make add a performance art component. The idea got a laugh, but it won’t be happening. Butler's "Avant-Kitsch" will remain temporarily sequestered in a gallery through March 16.

THE MUSIC PLAYED. THE ART STAYED: Life is Beautiful Festival will return to downtown Las Vegas October 24-26, 2014. That may also be the return of Charlotte Dutoit, who curated Rise Above, the festival's street art program. It would be a mistake if Rise Above did not return. It challenged the city's view on murals (much more on that later) and the collective of urban artists demonstrated how street art has style and form that differs from graffiti. The large-scale rebellion, satire, and so forth, raised the bar in many ways.